Alcuin
(Alhwin, Alchoin; Latin Albinus, also Flaccus).
An eminent educator, scholar, and theologian born about 735 ; died 19 May, 804.
He came of noble Northumbrian parentage, but the place of his birth is a matter
of dispute. It was probably in or near York. While still a mere child, he entered
the cathedral school founded at that place by Archbishop Egbert. His aptitude,
and piety early attracted the attention of Aelbert, master of the school, as well as
of the Archbishop, both of whom devoted special attention to his instruction. In
company with his master, he made several visits to the continent while a youth,
and when, in 767, Aelbert succeeded to the Archbishopric of York, the duty of
directing the school naturally devolved upon Alcuin. During the fifteen years that
followed, he devoted himself to the work of instruction at York, attracting
numerous students and enriching the already valuable library. While returning
from Rome in March, 781, he met Charlemagne at Parma, and was induced by
that prince, whom he greatly admired, to remove to France and take up
residence at the royal court as "Master of the Palace School". The school was
kept at Aachen most of the time, but was removed from place to place,
according as the royal residence was changed. In 786 he returned to England, in
connection, apparently, with important ecclesiastical affairs, and again in 790, on
a mission from Charlemagne. Alcuin attended the Synod of Frankfort in 794, and
took an important part in the framing of the decrees condemning Adoptionism as
well as in the efforts made subsequently to effect the submission of the
recalcitrant Spanish prelates. In 796, when past his sixtieth year, being anxious
to withdraw from the world, he was appointed by Charlemagne Abbot of St.
Martin's at tours. Here, in his declining years, but with undiminished zeal, he set
himself to build up a model monastic school, gathering books and drawing
students, as before, at Aachen and York, from far and near. He died 19 May,
804. Alcuin appears to have been only a deacon, his favourite appellation for
himself in his letters being "Albinus, humilis Levita". Some have thought,
however, that he became a priest, at least during his later years. His unknown
biographer, in describing this period, says of him, celebrabat omni die missarum
solemnia (Jaffé, "Mon. Alcuin., Vita," 30). In one of his last letters Alcuin
acknowledged the gift of a casula, or chasuble, which he promises to use in
missarum solemniis (Ep. 203). It is probable that he was a monk, and a member
of the Benedictine Order, although this also has been disputed, some historians
maintaining that he was simply a member of the secular clergy, even when he
exercised the office of abbot at Tours.
I. EDUCATOR AND SCHOLAR
Of his work as an educator and scholar it may be said, in a general way, that he
had the largest share in the movement for the revival of learning which
distinguished the age in which he lived, and which made possible the great
intellectual renaissance of three centuries later. In him Anglo-Saxon scholarship
attained to its widest influence, the rich intellectual inheritance left by Bede at
Jarrow being taken up by Alcuin at York, and, through his subsequent labours on
the Continent, becoming the permanent possession of civilized Europe. The
influences surrounding Alcuin at York were made up chiefly of elements from two
sources, Irish and Continental. From the sixth century onward Irishmen were
busy founding schools as well as churches and monasteries all over Europe; and
from Iona, according to Bede, Aidan and other Celtic missionaries bore the
knowledge of the classics, along with the light of the Christian faith, into
Northumbria. Both Aldhelm and Bede had Irish teachers. Celtic scholarship
appears, however, to have entered only remotely and indirectly into Alcuin's
training. The strongly Roman cast which characterized the School of Canterbury,
founded by Theodore and Hadrian, who were sent by the Pope to England in 669,
was naturally reproduced in the School of Jarrow, and from this, in turn, in the
School of York. The influence is discernible in Alcuin, on the religious side, in his
devoted adhesion to Roman, as distinguished from particular local or national,
traditions, as well as, in an intellectual way, in the fact that his knowledge of
Greek, which was a favourite study with Irish scholars, appears to have been very
slight.
An important feature of Alcuin's educational work at York was the care and
preservation, as well as the enlargement, of its precious library. Several times he
journeyed through Europe for the purpose of copying and collecting books.
Numerous pupils, too, gathered around him, from all parts of England and the
continent. In his poem "On the Saints of the Church of York", written, probably,
before he took up his residence in France, he has left us a valuable description of
the academic life at York, together with a list of the authors represented by its
catalogue of books. The course of studies embraced, in the words of Alcuin,
"liberal studies and the holy word", or the seven liberal arts comprising the
trivium and the quadrivium, with the study of Scripture and the Fathers for those
more advanced. A feature of the school that deserves mention was the
organization of studies on the modern plan, the students being separated into
classes, according to the subjects and divisions of subjects studied, with a
special teacher for each class. But it was when he took charge of the Palace
School that the abilities of Alcuin were most conspicuously shown. In spite of the
influence of York, learning in England was declining. The country was a prey to
dissensions and civil wars, and Alcuin perceived in the growing power of
Charlemagne and his eagerness for the development of learning an opportunity
such as even York, with all its pre-eminence and scholastic advantages, could
not afford. Nor was he disappointed. Charlemagne counted on education to
complete the work of empire-building in which he was engaged, and his mind
was busy with educational projects. A literary revival, in fact, had already begun.
Scholars were drawn from Italy, Germany, and Ireland, and when Alcuin, in 782,
transferred his allegiance to Charlemagne, he soon found surrounding him at
Aachen, in addition to the youthful members of the nobility he was called upon to
instruct, a band of older learners some of whom were ranked among the best
scholars of the time. Under his leadership the Palace School became what
Charles had hoped to make it, the centre of knowledge and culture for the whole
kingdom, and indeed for the whole of Europe. Charlemagne himself, his queen,
Luitgard, his sister Gisela, his three sons and two daughters became pupils of
the school, an example which the rest of the nobility were not slow to imitate.
Alcuin's supreme merit as an educator lay, however, not merely in the training up
of a generation of educated men and women, but above all, in inspiring with his
own enthusiasm for learning and teaching the talented youths who flocked to him
from all sides. His educational writings, comprising the treatises "On Grammar",
"On Orthography", "On Rhetoric and the Virtues", "On Dialectics", the
"Disputation with Pepin", and the astronomical treatise entitled "De Cursu et
Saltu Lunae ac Bissexto", afford an insight into the matter and methods of
teaching employed in the Palace School and the schools of the time generally,
but they are not remarkable either for originality or literary excellence. They are
mostly compilations -- generally in the form of dialogues drawn from the works of
earlier scholars, and were probably intended to be used as textbooks by his own
pupils.
Alcuin, like Bede, was a teacher rather than a thinker, a gatherer and a
distributor rather than an originator of knowledge, and in this respect, it is plain to
us now, the bent of his genius responded perfectly to the imperative intellectual
need of the age, which was the preservation and the representation to the world
of the treasures of knowledge inherited from the past, long buried out of sight by
the successive tides of barbarian invasion. Disce ut doceas (learn in order to
teach) was the motto of his life, and the supreme value he attached to the office
of teaching is recognizable in his admonition to his disciples that the idle youth
would never become a teacher in his old age (Qui non discit in pueritia, non
docet in senectute, Ep. 27). Alcuin was eminently qualified to be the
schoolmaster of his age. Although living in the world and occupied much with
public affairs, he was a man of singular humility and sanctity of life. He had an
unbounded enthusiasm for learning and a tireless zeal for the practical work of
the class-room and library, and the young men of talent whom he drew in crowds
around him from all parts of Europe went away inspired with something of his
own passionate ardour for study. His warm-hearted and affectionate disposition
made him universally beloved, and the ties that bound master and pupil often
ripened into intimate friendship that lasted through life. Many of his letters that
have been preserved were written to his former pupils, more than thirty being
addressed to his tenderly loved disciple Arno, who became Archbishop of
Salzburg. Before he died Alcuin had the satisfaction of seeing the young men
whom he had trained engaged all over Europe in the work of teaching.
"Wherever", says Wattenbach, in speaking of the period that followed, "anything
of literary activity is visible, there we can with certainty count on finding a pupil of
Alcuin's." Many of his pupils came to occupy important positions in Church and
State and lent their influence to the cause of learning, as the above-mentioned
Arno, Archbishop of Salzburg; Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans; Eanbald,
Archbishop of York; Adelhard, the cousin of Charles, who became Abbot of
(New) Corbie, in Saxony; Aldrich, Abbot of Ferrières, and Fridugis, the successor
of Alcuin at Tours. Among his pupils also was the celebrated Rabanus Maurus,
the intellectual successor of Alcuin, who came to study under him for a time at
Tours, and who subsequently in his school at Fulda, continued the work of Alcuin
at Aachen and Tours.
The development of the Palace School, however, important as it was, was only a
part of the broad educational plans of Charlemagne. For the diffusion of learning,
other educational centers had to be established throughout the kingdom, and for
this, in an age when education was so largely, under the control of the Church, it
was essential that the clergy should be a body of educated men. With this object
in view, a series of decrees or capitulars were issued in the name of the
Emperor, which enjoined upon all clerics, secular as well as regular, under
penalty of suspension deprivation of office, the ability to read and write and the
possession of the knowledge requisite for the intelligent performance of the
duties of the clerical state. Reading-schools were to be established for the
benefit of candidates for the priesthood, and bishops were required to examine
their clergy from time to time, to ascertain the degree of their compliance with
these educational laws. A scheme for universal elementary education was also
projected. A capitular of the year 802 enjoined that "everyone should send his
son to study letters, and that the child should remain at school with all diligence
until he should become well instructed in learning " (West, 54). Following the
decrees of the Council of Vaison, a primary school was to be established in
every town and village to be taught by the priests gratuitously. It is impossible to
say to what extent Alcuin deserves credit for the organization of the vast
educational system which was thus set up, comprising a central higher
institution, the Palace School, a number of subordinate schools of the liberal arts
scattered throughout the country, and schools for the common people in every
city and village. His hand is nowhere visible in the series of legislative
enactments referred to; but there can be no doubt that he had much to do with
the instigation, if not with the framing, of these laws. "The voice", Gaskoin aptly
says, "is the voice of Charles, but the hand is the hand of Alcuin". It was with
Alcuin, too, and his pupils that the responsibility rested for carrying out the
legislation. True, the laws were only imperfectly carried into effect; the measures
planned and partially put into practice for the enlightenment of the people did not
meet with complete success; the movement for the revival and diffusion of
learning throughout the Empire did not last. Yet much was accomplished that did
endure. The accumulated wisdom or the past, which was in danger of perishing,
was preserved, and when the greater and more permanent renaissance of
learning came, several centuries later, when the light began to pierce through the
storm-clouds of feudal strife and anarchy, the foundations laid in the eighth
century were still there, ready to receive the weight of the higher learning which
the scholars of the new revival should build up" (Gaskoin, 209). Alcuin's poems
range from brief, epigrammatic verses, addressed to his friends, or intended as
inscriptions for books, churches, altars, etc., to lengthy metrical histories of
biblical and ecclesiastical events. His verses seldom rise to the level of real
poetry, and, like most of the work of the poets of the period, they often fail to
conform to the rules for quantity, just as his prose, though simple and vigorous,
shows here and there a seeming disregard for the accepted canons of syntax.
His principal metrical work, the "Poem on the Saints of the Church at York",
consists of 1657 hexameter lines and is really a history of that Church.
II. ALCUIN AS A THEOLOGIAN
Alcuin's work as a theologian may be classed as exegetical or biblical, moral,
and dogmatic. Here again the characteristic that has been noted in his
educational work is conspicuous it is that of conservation rather than originality.
His nine Scriptural commentaries -- on Genesis, The Psalms, The Song of
Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Hebrew Names, St. John's Gospel, the Epistles to Titus,
Philemon, and the Hebrews, The Sayings of St. Paul, and the Apocalypse --
consist mostly of sentences taken from the Fathers, the idea, apparently, being
to collect into convenient form the observations on the more important Scriptural
passages of the best commentators who had preceded him. A more important
Biblical undertaking by Alcuin was the revision of the text of the Latin Vulgate. At
the beginning of the ninth century, this version had displaced in France, as
elsewhere throughout the Western Church, the Old Itala (Vetus Itala) and other
Latin versions of the Bible; but the Vulgate, as it existed, showed many variants
from the original of St. Jerome. Uniformity in the sacred text was in fact,
unknown. Every church and monastery had its own accepted readings, and
varying texts were often to be found in the Bibles used in the same house. Other
scholars besides Alcuin were engaged in the task of endeavouring to remedy this
condition. Theodulph of Orléans produced a revised text of the Vulgate which has
survived in the "Codex Memmianus". The original work of Alcuin has not come
down to us, the carelessness of copyists and the extensive usage to which it
attained having led to numberless, though for the most part unimportant
variations from the standard he sought to fix. In his letters he simply mentions
the fact that he is engaged, by the order of Charlemagne, "in emendatione
Veteris Novique Testamenti" (Ep., 136). Four Bibles are shown by the dedicatory
poems affixed to them to have been prepared by him, or under his direction at
Tours, probably during the years 799-801. In the opinion of Berger the "Tours
Bibles" all represent in a greater or less degree, notwithstanding their variations
in detail, the original Alcuinian text (Hist. de la vulg., 242). Whatever the exact
changes made by Alcuin in the Bible text may have been, the known temper of
the man, no less than the limits of the scholarship of the age, makes it certain
that these changes were not of a far-reaching kind. The idea being, however, to
reproduce the genuine text of St. Jerome, so far as possible, and to correct the
gross blunders which disfigured the Sacred writings, the Biblical work of Alcuin
was, from this point of view, important. Of the three brief moral treatises Alcuin
has left us, two, "De virtutibus et vitiis", and "De animae ratione", are largely
abridgments of the writing of St. Augustine on the same subjects, while the third,
"On the Confession of Sins", is a concise exposition of the nature of confession,
addressed to the monks of St. Martin of Tours. Closely allied to his moral
writings in spirit and purpose are his sketches of the lives of St. Martin of Tours,
St. Vedast, St. Riquier, and St. Willibrord, the last being a biography of
considerable length.
It is upon his dogmatic writings that the fame of Alcuin as a theologian principally
rests. Against the Adoptionist heresy he stood forth as the foremost champion of
the Church. It is a proof of his power of penetration -- a quality of mind which
some historians appear to deny him altogether -- that he so clearly perceived the
essentially heretical attitude of Felix and Elipandus toward the Christological
question, an attitude whose heterodoxy was shrouded perhaps even from their
own eyes in the beginning, by the specious distinction between natural and
adoptive sonship; and it was a worthy tribute to the range of his patristic
scholarship when Felix, the chief intellectual defender of Adoptionism, after the
disputation with Alcuin at Aachen, acknowledged the error of his position. The
condemnation of the rising heresy by the Synod of Regensburg (Ratisbon), in
792, having failed to check its spread, another and a larger synod, composed of
representatives of the Churches of France, Italy, Britain, and Galicia, was
convened at Frankfort by the order of Charles, in 794. Alcuin was present at this
meeting and no doubt took a prominent part in the discussions and in the
drawing up of the "Epistola Synodica", although, with characteristic modesty, he
furnishes no evidence of the fact in his letters. Following up the work of the
Synod, he addressed to Felix, for whom he had formerly entertained high
esteem, a touching letter of admonition and exhortation. After his transfer to
Tours, in 796, he received from Felix a reply which showed that something more
than friendly entreaty would be needed to stay the progress of the heresy. He
had already drawn up a small treatise consisting mainly of patristic quotations,
against the teaching of the heretics, under the title "Liber Albini contra haeresim
Felicis", and he now undertook a larger and more thorough discussion of the
theological questions involved. This work, in seven books, "Libri VII adversus
Felicem", was a refutation of the position of the Adoptionists, rather than an
exposition of Catholic doctrine, and hence followed the lines of their arguments,
instead of a strictly logical order of development. Alcuin urged against the
Adoptionists the universal testimony of the Fathers, the inconsistencies involved
in the doctrine itself, its logical relation to Nestorianism, and the rationalistic
spirit which was forever prompting to just such attempted human explanations of
the unsearchable mysteries of faith. In the spring of 799 a disputation took place
between Alcuin and Felix in the royal palace at Aachen, which ended by Felix
acknowledging his errors and accepting the teachings of the Church. Felix
subsequently paid a friendly visit to Alcuin at Tours. Having sought in vain to
bring about the submission of Elipandus, Alcuin drew up another treatise entitled
"Adversus Elipandum Libri IV", entrusting it for circulation to the commissioners
whom Charlemagne was sending to Spain. In 802 he sent to the emperor the
last, and perhaps the most important, of his theological treatises, the "Libellus
de Sancta Trinitate", a work which is uncontroversial in form, although probably
suggested to him during the discussions with the Adoptionists. The treatise
contains a brief appendix entitled "De Trinitate ad Fridegisum quaestiones
XXVIII". The book is a compendium of Catholic doctrine concerning the Holy
Trinity, St. Augustine's treatise on the subject being kept steadily in view. It is
uncertain to what extent Alcuin shared in the attitude of remonstrance assumed
by the Frankish Church, at the instance of Charlemagne, towards the badly
translated and ill understood decrees of the second Council of Nicaea, held in
787. The style of the "Libri Carolini" which condemn, in the name of the King, the
decrees of the Council, favours the assumption that Alcuin had at least no direct
part in the composition of the work.
III. ALCUIN AS A LITURGIST
Besides his justly merited fame as an educator and a theologian, Alcuin has the
honour of having been the principle agent in the great work of liturgical reform
accomplished by the authority of Charlemagne. At the accession of Charles the
Gallican rite prevailed in France, but it was so modified by local customs and
traditions as to constitute a serious obstacle to complete ecclesiastical unity. It
was the purpose of the King to substitute the Roman rite in place of the Gallican,
or at least to bring about such a revision of the latter as to make it substantially
one with the Roman. The strong leaning of Alcuin towards the traditions of the
Roman Church, combined with his conservative character and the universal
authority of his name, qualified him for the accomplishment of a change which
the royal authority in itself was powerless to effect. The first of Alcuin's liturgical
works appears to have been a Homiliary, or collection of sermons in Latin for the
use of priests. The Homiliary which was printed under his name in the fifteenth
century was by a different hand, although it is probable, its Dom Morin contends,
that a recently discovered manuscript of the twelfth century contains the genuine
Alcuinian sermons. Another liturgical work of Alcuin consists of a collection of
the Epistles to be read on Sundays and holy-days throughout the year, and
bears the name, "Comes ab Albino ex Caroli imp. praecepto emendatus". As,
previous to his time, the portions of Scripture to be read at Mass were often
merely indicated on the margins of the Bibles used, the "Comes" commended
itself by its convenience, and as he followed Roman usage here also, the result
was another advance in the way of conformity to the Roman liturgy. The work of
Alcuin which had the greatest and most lasting influence in this direction,
however, was the Sacramentary, or Missal which he compiled, using the
Gregorian Sacramentary as a basis, and to this adding a supplement of other
liturgical sources. Prescribed as the official Mass-book for the Frankish Church,
Alcuin's Missal soon came to be commonly used throughout Europe and was
largely instrumental in bringing about uniformity in respect to the liturgy of the
Mass in the whole Western Church. Other liturgical productions of Alcuin were a
collection of votive Masses, drawn up for the monks of Fulda, a treatise called
"De psalmorum usu", a breviary for laymen, and a brief explanation of the
ceremonies of Baptism.
A complete edition of Alcuin's works, with the exception of some of his Epistles,
is to be found in Migne, comprising volumes 100-101 of the "Patrologia Latina".
The text of the Migne edition was first published by Froben, Abbot of St.
Emmeran, at Ratisbon, in 1777, a previous and and less complete edition having
been published by Duchesne at Paris, in 1617. A critically accurate edition of the
"Epistles" of Alcuin, together with his poem, "On the Saints of the Church at
York", his "Life of St. Willibrord and the "Life of Alcuin", composed about 829, is
found in the fourth volume of the "Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum", under the
title "Monumenta Alcuiniana" edited by Jaffé, Wattenbach, and Duemmler
(Berlin, 1873). This edition contains 293 of Alcuin's Epistles, against the 230 in
Migne.
J. A. Burns
Transcribed by Michael C. Tinkler
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I
Copyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York